The effect of fatty liver with or without hepatomegaly on the renal artery resistance

Abstract

Fatty liver can cause vascular damage due to metabolic syndrome. Intrarenal arterial resistance index (RI) value calculate by Doppler ultrasound. The evaluation of GFR and RRI can lead to our understanding of kidney function at the level of glomerular filtration and arterial renal blood flow. On the other hand, the onset of fatty liver disease is expected to lead to a change in the level of GFR or possibly the resistance of the renal artery. According to the above, we aimed to study the effect of fatty liver with or without hepatomegaly on the resistance of the renal artery by designing this study.Materials and Methods:In this cross-sectional study, patients after diagnosis of fatty liver by ultrasound (hyperechogenic hepatomegaly with dorsal hypoechogenicity) and elevated liver enzymes enrolled the study. Also, as patients in the case group, healthy subjects with no liver problems that were matched for age and sex were included. Subsequently, patients were asked about demographic information and anthropometric information, and then the patients underwent sonography of B mode and Doppler. Renal length, kidney thickness, liver size and spleen size were also calculated by abdominal sonography. In this study, the renal artery resistance index was obtained based on the formula RI = [VmaxSystole-VminDiastole] / VmaxSystole. All patients' information was entered into SPSS software and analyzed. Findings:In this study, 80 subjects were studied, 40 of them in the healthy group and 40 in the fatty liver group. The number of women in this study was 42 (52%). The mean age of all participants in the study was 42±11 years. Right kidney RI was 0.61 ± 0.05 in the fatty liver group and 0.59 ± 0.11 in the normal group (P-value = 0.155). The RI value of the left kidney was 0.62 ± 0.05 in the fatty liver group and 0.59 ± 0.0.03 in the healthy subjects group. This difference was not statistically significant (P-value = 0.389). Correlation coefficient between age and right renal RI was 0.249 (P-value = 0.027) and this factor between age and left kidney RI was 0.325 (P-value =0.003). Both relationships were statistically significant.